Golan2072
Cosmic Mongoose
It was deleted by Virus, so I'm re-posting it.
I've received MGT today. I'm going to read through it for the first time and post my comments here like I did back in 2006 with T4 and TNE.
Pre-Read Impressions
I've just thumbed through the book for the first time without reading much. The cover is high-quality hardback. It is a black cover with red text and without much decorations, but still feels very cool-looking and clean. Because of the quality cover materials it still looks very, very attractive as a book. Binding is good; the paper used is similar to standard A4 printer paper. The interior is 100% black-and white.
The interior font is very readable and the tables are mostly in a very readable size as far as I can tell. Internal illustrations are a mixed bag: on one hand, the ship pictures ROCK BIG TIME, and on the other hand a few illustrations weren't so good; the majority of art falls in between these two extremes: adequate, appropriate to their context, good flavor/atmosphere but nothing breathtaking.
If this was the first time I had a Traveller book in my hands, I might have guessed from the illustrations that Traveller is similar in look and feel to a cross between Alien/Aliens and Starcraft (some illustrations were similar to the Starcraft manual's art). Most guns feel like the Pulse Rifle from Aliens.
A minor gripe: some of the career's art doesn't come in the correct order: for example, for Citizen, the sub-careers are Corporate, Worker and Colonist while the illustrations look like Worker, Corporate and Colonist (and the Colonist looks a bit paramilitary).
Now, on to reading the book itself
Impressions from the Introduction
The introduction is fine and more or less what you'd expect from such a book. The exception to this is the fact that, while there are paragraphs describing referees, players, and game types, there is no paragraph saying what an RPG is. I guess that MGT is aimed at people with at least a passing familiarity with RPGs.
On the other hand, the example of play is good and relevant. This is a good RPG core-book practice: every RPG core-book should have one. This lets a new player understand what Traveller is all about and how playing it should feel.
The four archetypal Traveller campaign types - trade, warfare, exploration and odds'n'ends - are given, along with a nice feature: sci-fi media examples (TV, movies and computer games) for each of the first three styles. Again, this gives new players a feel for these campaign types, which is a great thing.
The Imperium is mentioned as the default setting, but the book gives very little information about the Imperium. A page or two of introductionary material about the OTU would've been nice. As a general note, the core-book isn't instantly playable "as-is" (but neither was CT) - no default subsector and background are given, and no starting adventure, though Signs and Portents (the Mongoose E-Zine available for free from their site) issue 55 contains a free Traveller adventure. For players familiar with Traveller (and having existing Traveller setting material and adventures at hand) this isn't much of a problem, but for a new player that would mean building the default setting from scratch or purchasing additional setting material before beginning play. But, again, the same was true for CT as well...
At the end of the introduction there is a nice overview of Tech Levels, including some interesting information and changes as well: Jump Drives are now late TL9 (instead of just TL9), real starfaring starts at TL10 (or late TL9 for the very least), Jump Drives use gravitic technology and true AIs are TL11 instead of TL16+ (which is a good thing IMHO - modernizing the game a bit; if you want to limit AIs in your game, you could still add cultural/historical limitations to their use).
It should be noted that the text in some text boxes at the bottom of pages, such as in the bottom of p.4, is quite small and a bit difficult to read. But it is still readable.
Impression from the Character Generation System, part 1
Characteristics are generated by rolling 2d6 six times and arranging as desired (which I've done as a house-rule for a few years already). This means that characters are usually close to the average in their overall characteristics, but the players still have some control on which score their character would have in each characteristic. I like this that way.
Characteristics give DMs to task throws (among other things) according to a table, not unlike the way abilities are used in D20 games.
A funny point: the sample character sheet on p.7 has a Free Trader listed under "Equipment" with a mass of "plenty"...
MGT characters receive level-0 background skills before starting their careers, based on their Education and partially dependent on their homeworlds. These rules are simple, straightforward and elegant. Their only weakness is that they lack a quick-generation system for homeworlds, so a homeworld has to be either pre-generated, or generated on the fly using the WorldGen rules.
An interesting note: According to p.6, a character with Medic-2 could be considered a doctor, as opposed to CT's Medic-3...
Impression from the Character Generation System, part 2
There are 12 careers, each divided into 3 Specializations, which means that there are in total 36 sub-careers, covering almost every base. P.9 has a very useful table with page references for each career as well as the task throws for qualification (i.e. enlistment), survival and promotion. Yes, you've heard me right - these are now handled by the MGT task system, which simplifies things and makes the system easier to use and learn, but on the other hand removes a little bit of CT's nuances.
Each Specialization has its own survival and promotion rolls, a specialist skill table, its own ranks and its own automatic skills - it's almost a career on its own! And the player is free to choose his specialization, which is something I like (though, if you prefer a CT feel, you could easily house-rule that on a roll of 1d6, 1-2 puts you in the first specialization of the career, 3-4 in the second and 5-6 in the third).
Other than Drifters (and the auto-enlistment into the Nobles if you have Soc 10+), Merchants have the easiest qualification roll - easier than citizens! I guess that this is a major flavor thing, as the majority of NPCs encountered would be Citizens, but PCs would be more likely to be Merchants... Nobles have the hardest Qualification roll, but if your Soc is 10+ you get accepted automatically with no roll. So while a commoner would have a hard time getting into politics (i.e. Administrator) or diplomacy, Nobles get a free pass. Perfectly fitting for the Imperium, I think...
The easiest survival is for Dilettante Nobles, followed by Scientist/Physician Scholars and Worker Citizens.
Note that there are now Specializations within the Scout career that have easier survival than in the CT norm, but these are hard to advance in (yes, Scouts have advancement but thankfully no real ranks) and thus a bit of a lower chance to get a Type-S.
There are now enlisted/NCO ranks in the three military careers (Army, Marines, Navy), as well as commission rolls. Interestingly enough, Agent (Law Enforcement) doesn't have them. Promotion and Re-Enlistment rolls have been merged into an Advancement roll, and now re-enlistment is dependent on the the number of terms served (the more terms you've served, the greater chance for you to fail re-enlistment; I guess that this exists to balance the lack of chargen death).
Failed survival now forces you to leave you career as well as roll on a mishap table. An optional "iron man" rule does exist for those who prefer character death during chargen.
A question: do you get a skill roll for a term you've failed Survival in? Also, if an Event (except for a roll of 2 that clearly states the opposite) causes a Mishap roll, does it also force you to leave your career?
Career illustrations are a good idea, helping you visualize characters from each career as well as describe NPCs, though in some cases they are arranged in the wrong order: for example, for Citizen, the sub-careers are Corporate, Worker and Colonist while the illustrations look like Worker, Corporate and Colonist
A bug in the rules: asteroid mining now seems to work with Drones (see both the Seeker on p.115 and the Remote Operations skill description on p.57), but Drifter (Scavengers), who are described as Belters, don't get this skill, and neither do they get the Sensors skill (which would probably be useful for serious belting). Remote Operations is a rare skill, and only the Navy get it, and even then as an Advanced Education skill. All this while the world implied by the ship designs and equipment rules seems to be drone-heavy... A possible fix would be to allow characters to substitute Remote Operations to the Computer (or Mechanic?) skill, similar to how the Robot Ops skill is handled in CT-LBB8.
Oh, and Marines no longer have an automatic Cutlass skill - they get to choose between Melee and Gun Combat as their first automatic skill.
Most ships - other than Scouts, that is - are now handled similarly to CT's Free Traders, and have mortgages (with Ship Shares reducing the costs). Yep, this also includes Yachts and Corsairs.
Impression from the Character Generation System, part 3
Mustering out is similar to CT, with two major differences: first, it adds a few new benefits (armor, air/raft, scientific equipment and ship's boat). Second, as I've mentioned before, ship benefits are handled using "ship shares"; most ships (except for the Scout, that is) are now mortgaged (how do you get a mortgage for your Corsair? from the mob, I guess...), and ship shares reduce the basic cost before the mortgage (each share by 1%, so a VERY VERY rare and lucky party having 100 shares together could get a new ship without monthly payments). Shares are usually earmarked to a particular ship and are worth less for the purchase of other ships (e.g. receiving the "Free Trader" benefits gives you 5 Free Trader shares or 2 generic ship shares) This is a nice system overall, though I prefer Nobles to get yachts without mortgages and Pirates to have Corsairs without mortgages (stolen, won in gambling, and so on). Scout ships are on detached duty like in CT - free, but the Scout Service might decide you send you on missions from time to time.
An interesting touch is that purchases made from starting funds are limited to only Cr2,000 in total during chargen; expensive gear has to be bought in-game. This probably exists for two reasons: first, give the referee greater control on purchases, and, second, limit the amount of time spend on shopping during chargen. I'd probably allow my players to ignore this rule, BUT make sure they understand that I - the Referee - make the final decision on what they could purchase and what not. Another possible house-rule would be to give a law level restriction to pre-game purchases, thus keeping PGMP's out of the initial game.
A nice addition is the contact/ally/rival/enemy mechanic, which means that most characters would have useful (to the player in the case of contacts and allies; to the referee in case of rivals/enemies) NPCs listed down on their character sheets, usually connected to Events rolled during CharGen. Contacts are similar to the ones in TNE (Allies are similar to "solid contacts") and are mostly free-form (as opposed to the detailed contact ratings you have in Shadowrun).
You COULD die during MGT character generation even without the Iron man optional rule. If you're unlucky and a Mishap (or aging, for that matter) reduces a Characteristic to zero, you die unless you pay a hefty medical fee (or could you put this into "medical debt")?
Other Mishap injuries could be definitely cured by medical care, which costs money, though most careers subsidize (or even eliminate in some cases) this cost. Medical costs are deducted from your Cash Benefits, and any leftovers are debts you have to pay in-game.
You could take anagathics during CharGen to avoid aging, and their costs are handled similarly to other chargen medical costs. Anagathics are far, far cheaper in MGT than in CT, which isn't something I like very much (unless you give them side-effects, that is); in a high-TL universe, I'd give them CT prices, but make aging slower even without them on high-TL worlds (due to high-tech preventive medical care). But I usually like pre-TL15 settings (such as 1248 or near-future ATUs), and anagathics are TL15 - rare relic-tech in 1248 or alien artifacts in near-future ATUs - not something I'd allow in chargen in pre-TL15 settings. Anyhow, to balance anagathics, there is an optional rule putting a 6-term-maximum limit on characters.
Retirement pay, by the way, works in MGT in a very similar manner to CT.
The MGT chargen process is designed to be a group effort (though there are optional rules to do it individually); there is a mechanic called "connection" which essentially connects different PCs' Events and grants each PC up to two additional skill points to spend as they desire (as long as they don't increase a skill above 3), and there is a group "skill package" allowing the group to split a few campaign-relevant skill-1's to make the group well-rounded in terms of skills.
There is also an optional point-buy rule; I haven't tried it yet, so I can't tell how balanced it is. I'll try it soon and post the results.
An example character is provided - Alexander Lacelles Jamison of the CT fame. The example is very detailed, and thus helpful. On a strange note, Jamison's picture on p.39 looks to me a bit like a Shadowrun dwarf...
While the character sheets and sample NPCs provided do not use UWPs, they are still mentioned and described by the rules.
Impression from the Character Generation System, part 4 - Aliens
MGT has some basic rules regarding aliens. Some possible alien traits are provided, such as Small (like the Droyne), Large (like the K'Kree), Aquatic, Uplifted, Flyer and so on. Most of these traits have game-rule relevance (for example, smaller creatures are weaker but have better dexterity, large creatures are stronger but have lower dexterity; really small creatures are harder to hit and really big ones are easier to hit); Uplifted has no game-rule relevance and is more of a descriptor (for Vargr, Apes and Dolphins). Aliens also tend to use a different stat instead of Social Standing - Vargr have Charisma, for example.
Under the basic MGT rules, alien use the same careers as humans do, but the referee is advised to create different event tables for them. Future products are mentioned to include detailed alien chargen.
The OTU's Major Races (Aslan, Droyne, Hiver, K'Kree, Vargr, Zhodani - but not Solomani and Vilani) are discussed in general terms and a few basic relevant rules.
Impression from the Tasks and Skills
MGT uses a task system not unlike the CT combat system - roll 2d6+DMs, 8+ is a success. The most common DMs are characteristic DMs, skill DMs and difficulty DMs (yes, difficulty is a DM to the roll). Characteristic DMs usually range from -1 to +1, unless the character has extreme characteristics (2 or less or 12 or more) - this is a good thing as the 2d6 curve is very sensitive to DMs. This also means that a professional (skill 2+) would usually benefit much more from his skill than from his characteristics, which is in accord with the basic Traveller assumptions. A sidebar in this chapter gives the probabilities of success with various total DMs.
It is noted in two places in this chapter that you don't have to make rolls unless either the task at hand is risky or when failure is interesting. In routine day-to-day operations a character with a skill usually succeeds.This rule-of-a-thumb means that you usually don't roll for landing in nice weather at a good starport with a working ship, but you'll have to roll a task when the weather is significantly bad or when landing under fire. In other words, use a task only when relevant to the drama. I like that approach.
You could use the same skill with different characteristic DMs at different occasions - for example, while shooting uses the appropriate Gun Combat specialization and the Dexterity DM, identifying the brand of a gun in a weapon bazaar would use the appropriate Gun Combat specialization and the Education DM. This is nice, intuitive and flexible.
Timing and Effect have been totally revised from the initial playtest concepts. Timing uses an additional (separate) 1d6, which is then multiplied by the time interval of the task at hand. You could also hasten a task (taking a negative DM) or take your time with it (which gives you a positive DM). Effect is no longer tied to a single die; instead, you take you task roll total (2d6+all DMs including difficulty) and subtract 8 from it. The result is your Effect. What you do with that number differs from task to task, but as a general rule an effect of 6 or more is a particularly great success and an effect of -6 or less is a particularly embarrassing failure.
A cool new concept in MGT is the idea of Task Chains. These are chains of inter-dependent tasks (usually taken by different PCs) in which the Effect of one task applies a DM on the next. For example, if character A is chatting with a guard in order to distract him so that character B could sneak by unnoticed, a particularly good success on character A's Deception roll would give a positive DM to character B's Stealth roll, and a particularly bad failure would give a negative DM.
There are 47 skills in total in MGT including four Science skills. This is about twice the amount of skills in CT-LBB1, but on the other hand there are also twice the number of careers (specializations not counted), some skills are not absolutely necessary in every game and are more a matter of flavor than anything else (Art for example or even Science skills if you're running, say, a Merc campaign), and some skills overlap (Deception, Persuasion, Admin, Advocate and even Diplomat or Streetwise could be used to solve similar problems from different angles). Most skills are ones from CT-LBBs 1-7, with some additions (such as Science, Art and Athletics) and some changes (Vehicle is now split into Drive, Flyer and Seafarer; Recon is mostly observation and Stealth is its own skill; Electronic is a specialization of Engineering rather than a separate skill, Gravities are subsumed in Engineering (M-Drive) and a few more changes).
Cascade skills are nominally gone. Instead, some skills (such as Engineering or Gun Combat) have Specializations. Each specialization is a skill on it's own, BUT having ranks (or even even Skill-0) in one specialization gives you Skill-0 in the other specialization of the same skill - for example, if you have Gun Combat (Slug Pistol)-1 you get Skill-0 in Gun Combat (Slug Rifle), Gun Combat (Energy Pistol) and Gun Combat (Energy Rifle). You could, of course, develop the other specializations as well (for example, get Skill-1 or more in both Slug Pistol and Slug Rifle).
There are now separate Engineering specializations for M-Drives, J-Drives, P-Plants, Electronics and Life Support. This means that many engineers would have Skill-0 in some of these fields.
A strange this - p.49 lists the difficulty of plotting a jump as Average while p.53 lists it as Easy. Which is correct?
Jack of Trades (JoT) now decreases the Unskilled penalty, so JoT-3 (the maximum) effectively means that you have Skill-0 in ALL skills. This feels a little overpowered, but on the other hand JoT is not a very common skill, Skill-3's are rare in any case, and you can't increase or even gain this skill after chargen.
MGT has a Trade (which means profession in this context) skill, covering various manufacturing and services professions such as hydroponics or polymer-productions. There is a simple mechanic for earning money from your Trade using a monthly task roll's Effect, but no Difficulty is given, and, furthermore, the amount of credits given seems VERY low in comparison with the cost of living table on p.87.
There is a very simple system for character advancement - you could increase your skills or even gain new skills simply by training, No costs are given, and it is not clear whether or not you could engage in other activities while training. The training time is measured in weeks, but could easily amount to months, and feels similar to the CT-LBB4 Instruction times. Also, the more skills in total you already have in MGT, the longer it takes you to learn new ones.
Impression from the Combat System
The MGT combat system is merely 9 pages long, including tables (and thankfully not too many of them) and even vehicle combat (and repair) rules. This is a great thing for an RPG combat system as long as the system works - as it means that the system is simple, and, hopefully, efficient. And, expect for two major pitfalls (problematic armor rules and unclear vehicle movement rules), it actually is quite a good and efficient system. And it covers quite a lot of subjects as well, all without being overly complicated.
Unlike the playtest rules, initiative doesn't use Timing dice, but instead a roll of 2D6+the Dexterity DM at the beginning of the combat encounter. This base initiative stays for the remainder of this encounter (and whoever has the higher initiative acts first), BUT several factors may change initiative temporarily (for one combat round at a time), such as using heavy melee weapons or firearms with serious recoil (especially in full auto), or trying to hasten one's action at the price of a negative DM to all actions.
Each round you could perform one minor action (such as movement, driving a vehicle or aiming), one significant action (such as firing), and any number of free actions (such as speaking a word or flipping a switch within your reach). Alternatively, you could forgo all your actions to perform an extended action - any action taking more than one combat round (such as first aid). You could also react to attacks (by parrying or dodging) any number of times you want, but each such reaction gives penalties to task rolls until the end of the current round.
The attack roll is a task roll, and thus very similar to CT to-hit rolls: skill, plus the appropriate characteristic DM and any relevant other DMs. 8+ hits. An interesting thing is that you could now use DEX in lieu of STR in order to provide the DM to hit in melee. At first glance it looks as if the role of Strength in combat is diminished, but it isn't - STR now helps dealing with heavy melee weapons or with firearm recoil; a weak but agile character could aim a heavy melee weapon well, but would take longer than a stronger character to recover and get the weapon ready again (in game terms, heft or recoil penalizes Initiative for the next round).
There are two types of automatic fire: bursts and auto-fire. Bursts simply increases damage by the weapon's autofire rating while wasting ammo than a single shot and having a larger recoil penalty. Auto-fire means that for the attack roll you roll a number of dice equal to the weapon's auto-fire rating and assign two of them to each target (BEFORE rolling, I hope!) as long as the targets are close to each another - so you get multiple attacks; but recoil is very heavy in that mode and it spends a lot of ammo.
Unlike CT, thrown weapons now use attack rolls like any other ranged weapon, but use the Athletics (Coordination) skill instead of Gun Combat.
You could now use Tactics or Leadership to increase the initiative of others, but while tactics allows you to increase the initiative of all characters under your command, Leadership only increases the Initiative of one character at a time.
Cover works by giving a negative DM to hit, and if you're prone behind cover the DMs for both cover and being prone stack - up to DM -6 when being prone behind full cover!
MGT uses range-bands by default, though there are rules for using square-grids as well. Range gives a DM to hit as in CT, but is per category (e.g. Pistol, Rifle, Shotgun, Assault Weapon and so on) rather than by individual weapon.
At first glance, MGT damage looks like CT, but a closer look reveals that it is quite different. Damage is deducted from the physical characteristics, alright, and you die when all three characteristics reach zero, but here the differences start. For starters, damage is taken first from Endurance and only then from a target's choice of Dexterity or Strength (though there is an optional rule to choose any physical characteristic to be the first instead of END). Also, you don't fall unconscious when your END reaches zero, only when BOTH your END and another physical characteristic reaches zero (though there is an optional rule with which you fall unconscious when your first physical characteristic reaches zero). And, weapon damage is - apparently - applied as a whole to one characteristics, and if it reaches zero any left-over damage goes to the next one. This makes combat quite deadly, as you can't split the damage dice between different characteristics. So gun-shots HURT!
Armor now absorbs damage points rather than giving a DM to hit or absorbing damage dice. The thing is that most armor types presented on the p.87 table are quite weak in comparison to weapons, especially with Effect added to their damage.
Look at this that way: most pistols do 3D6-3 damage. On average, a D6 result is 3.5; 3D6 on average is 10-11 (let's say 11), and thus 3D6-3 is around 8 points of damage on average before applying Effect. Cloth armor, which is the equivalent of an RL Kevlar vest, stops only 3 points of damage - hardly stopping a pistol bullet even with Effect 0 and an average roll. A dagger does 1D6+2, which is on average 5-6 points of damage even with Effect 0 - and Jack Armor, which is supposed to be helpful against melee attacks, has only Armor 1, which is hardly effective against it.
The vehicle rules are very simple and seem to be written with "what happens when I fire my PGMP-12 on that G-Carrier" or a car-chase in city streets in mind rather than tank- or aircraft-squadron engagements. Movement rules are very vague; the vehicle descriptions have speeds in KPH, but there are no rules for movement or acceleration/deceleration within a frame of a combat round. However, there ARE quite cool rules for chases, up to and including "weaving" your vehicle between obstacles in hope of getting the pursuer to crash into them. There are also rules for crashing, ramming, evasive maneuvers and so on.
The vehicle damage system is good, and there is a table for converting personnel damage (i.e. gun damage) into vehicle damage. Hits themselves are resolved on a damage table, a bit similar to CT-LBB2 ship damage tables but with an "internal damage" sub-table instead of a "critical" sub-table. There is also a robot/drone damage table - robots/drones behave like characters in combat but take hits like vehicles. All vehicles/robots/drones have two damage-related attributes: Hull and Structure. When hull is reduced to zero, any further hit is rolled on the interior damage table, where all the juicier bits are (e.g. power plant, passengers and so on, as well as Structure hits); until then you roll only on the exterior table which has weapons, drives, Hull hits and so on. When Structure reaches zero, the vehicle is destroyed; if a single attack applied to Structure causes more hits than there are Structure points, the vehicle explodes!
The repair rules are very short but extremely cool, essentially measuring damage in "hits" and allowing you to cannibalize other vehicles for spare parts - effectively causing damage hits to their systems! There are also rules for replacing completely destroyed systems.
I've received MGT today. I'm going to read through it for the first time and post my comments here like I did back in 2006 with T4 and TNE.
Pre-Read Impressions
I've just thumbed through the book for the first time without reading much. The cover is high-quality hardback. It is a black cover with red text and without much decorations, but still feels very cool-looking and clean. Because of the quality cover materials it still looks very, very attractive as a book. Binding is good; the paper used is similar to standard A4 printer paper. The interior is 100% black-and white.
The interior font is very readable and the tables are mostly in a very readable size as far as I can tell. Internal illustrations are a mixed bag: on one hand, the ship pictures ROCK BIG TIME, and on the other hand a few illustrations weren't so good; the majority of art falls in between these two extremes: adequate, appropriate to their context, good flavor/atmosphere but nothing breathtaking.
If this was the first time I had a Traveller book in my hands, I might have guessed from the illustrations that Traveller is similar in look and feel to a cross between Alien/Aliens and Starcraft (some illustrations were similar to the Starcraft manual's art). Most guns feel like the Pulse Rifle from Aliens.
A minor gripe: some of the career's art doesn't come in the correct order: for example, for Citizen, the sub-careers are Corporate, Worker and Colonist while the illustrations look like Worker, Corporate and Colonist (and the Colonist looks a bit paramilitary).
Now, on to reading the book itself
Impressions from the Introduction
The introduction is fine and more or less what you'd expect from such a book. The exception to this is the fact that, while there are paragraphs describing referees, players, and game types, there is no paragraph saying what an RPG is. I guess that MGT is aimed at people with at least a passing familiarity with RPGs.
On the other hand, the example of play is good and relevant. This is a good RPG core-book practice: every RPG core-book should have one. This lets a new player understand what Traveller is all about and how playing it should feel.
The four archetypal Traveller campaign types - trade, warfare, exploration and odds'n'ends - are given, along with a nice feature: sci-fi media examples (TV, movies and computer games) for each of the first three styles. Again, this gives new players a feel for these campaign types, which is a great thing.
The Imperium is mentioned as the default setting, but the book gives very little information about the Imperium. A page or two of introductionary material about the OTU would've been nice. As a general note, the core-book isn't instantly playable "as-is" (but neither was CT) - no default subsector and background are given, and no starting adventure, though Signs and Portents (the Mongoose E-Zine available for free from their site) issue 55 contains a free Traveller adventure. For players familiar with Traveller (and having existing Traveller setting material and adventures at hand) this isn't much of a problem, but for a new player that would mean building the default setting from scratch or purchasing additional setting material before beginning play. But, again, the same was true for CT as well...
At the end of the introduction there is a nice overview of Tech Levels, including some interesting information and changes as well: Jump Drives are now late TL9 (instead of just TL9), real starfaring starts at TL10 (or late TL9 for the very least), Jump Drives use gravitic technology and true AIs are TL11 instead of TL16+ (which is a good thing IMHO - modernizing the game a bit; if you want to limit AIs in your game, you could still add cultural/historical limitations to their use).
It should be noted that the text in some text boxes at the bottom of pages, such as in the bottom of p.4, is quite small and a bit difficult to read. But it is still readable.
Impression from the Character Generation System, part 1
Characteristics are generated by rolling 2d6 six times and arranging as desired (which I've done as a house-rule for a few years already
). This means that characters are usually close to the average in their overall characteristics, but the players still have some control on which score their character would have in each characteristic. I like this that way.Characteristics give DMs to task throws (among other things) according to a table, not unlike the way abilities are used in D20 games.
A funny point: the sample character sheet on p.7 has a Free Trader listed under "Equipment" with a mass of "plenty"...
MGT characters receive level-0 background skills before starting their careers, based on their Education and partially dependent on their homeworlds. These rules are simple, straightforward and elegant. Their only weakness is that they lack a quick-generation system for homeworlds, so a homeworld has to be either pre-generated, or generated on the fly using the WorldGen rules.
An interesting note: According to p.6, a character with Medic-2 could be considered a doctor, as opposed to CT's Medic-3...
Impression from the Character Generation System, part 2
There are 12 careers, each divided into 3 Specializations, which means that there are in total 36 sub-careers, covering almost every base. P.9 has a very useful table with page references for each career as well as the task throws for qualification (i.e. enlistment), survival and promotion. Yes, you've heard me right - these are now handled by the MGT task system, which simplifies things and makes the system easier to use and learn, but on the other hand removes a little bit of CT's nuances.
Each Specialization has its own survival and promotion rolls, a specialist skill table, its own ranks and its own automatic skills - it's almost a career on its own! And the player is free to choose his specialization, which is something I like (though, if you prefer a CT feel, you could easily house-rule that on a roll of 1d6, 1-2 puts you in the first specialization of the career, 3-4 in the second and 5-6 in the third).
Other than Drifters (and the auto-enlistment into the Nobles if you have Soc 10+), Merchants have the easiest qualification roll - easier than citizens! I guess that this is a major flavor thing, as the majority of NPCs encountered would be Citizens, but PCs would be more likely to be Merchants... Nobles have the hardest Qualification roll, but if your Soc is 10+ you get accepted automatically with no roll. So while a commoner would have a hard time getting into politics (i.e. Administrator) or diplomacy, Nobles get a free pass. Perfectly fitting for the Imperium, I think...
The easiest survival is for Dilettante Nobles, followed by Scientist/Physician Scholars and Worker Citizens.
Note that there are now Specializations within the Scout career that have easier survival than in the CT norm, but these are hard to advance in (yes, Scouts have advancement but thankfully no real ranks) and thus a bit of a lower chance to get a Type-S.
There are now enlisted/NCO ranks in the three military careers (Army, Marines, Navy), as well as commission rolls. Interestingly enough, Agent (Law Enforcement) doesn't have them. Promotion and Re-Enlistment rolls have been merged into an Advancement roll, and now re-enlistment is dependent on the the number of terms served (the more terms you've served, the greater chance for you to fail re-enlistment; I guess that this exists to balance the lack of chargen death).
Failed survival now forces you to leave you career as well as roll on a mishap table. An optional "iron man" rule does exist for those who prefer character death during chargen.
A question: do you get a skill roll for a term you've failed Survival in? Also, if an Event (except for a roll of 2 that clearly states the opposite) causes a Mishap roll, does it also force you to leave your career?
Career illustrations are a good idea, helping you visualize characters from each career as well as describe NPCs, though in some cases they are arranged in the wrong order: for example, for Citizen, the sub-careers are Corporate, Worker and Colonist while the illustrations look like Worker, Corporate and Colonist
A bug in the rules: asteroid mining now seems to work with Drones (see both the Seeker on p.115 and the Remote Operations skill description on p.57), but Drifter (Scavengers), who are described as Belters, don't get this skill, and neither do they get the Sensors skill (which would probably be useful for serious belting). Remote Operations is a rare skill, and only the Navy get it, and even then as an Advanced Education skill. All this while the world implied by the ship designs and equipment rules seems to be drone-heavy... A possible fix would be to allow characters to substitute Remote Operations to the Computer (or Mechanic?) skill, similar to how the Robot Ops skill is handled in CT-LBB8.
Oh, and Marines no longer have an automatic Cutlass skill - they get to choose between Melee and Gun Combat as their first automatic skill.
Most ships - other than Scouts, that is - are now handled similarly to CT's Free Traders, and have mortgages (with Ship Shares reducing the costs). Yep, this also includes Yachts and Corsairs.
Impression from the Character Generation System, part 3
Mustering out is similar to CT, with two major differences: first, it adds a few new benefits (armor, air/raft, scientific equipment and ship's boat). Second, as I've mentioned before, ship benefits are handled using "ship shares"; most ships (except for the Scout, that is) are now mortgaged (how do you get a mortgage for your Corsair? from the mob, I guess...), and ship shares reduce the basic cost before the mortgage (each share by 1%, so a VERY VERY rare and lucky party having 100 shares together could get a new ship without monthly payments). Shares are usually earmarked to a particular ship and are worth less for the purchase of other ships (e.g. receiving the "Free Trader" benefits gives you 5 Free Trader shares or 2 generic ship shares) This is a nice system overall, though I prefer Nobles to get yachts without mortgages and Pirates to have Corsairs without mortgages (stolen, won in gambling, and so on). Scout ships are on detached duty like in CT - free, but the Scout Service might decide you send you on missions from time to time.
An interesting touch is that purchases made from starting funds are limited to only Cr2,000 in total during chargen; expensive gear has to be bought in-game. This probably exists for two reasons: first, give the referee greater control on purchases, and, second, limit the amount of time spend on shopping during chargen. I'd probably allow my players to ignore this rule, BUT make sure they understand that I - the Referee - make the final decision on what they could purchase and what not. Another possible house-rule would be to give a law level restriction to pre-game purchases, thus keeping PGMP's out of the initial game.
A nice addition is the contact/ally/rival/enemy mechanic, which means that most characters would have useful (to the player in the case of contacts and allies; to the referee in case of rivals/enemies) NPCs listed down on their character sheets, usually connected to Events rolled during CharGen. Contacts are similar to the ones in TNE (Allies are similar to "solid contacts") and are mostly free-form (as opposed to the detailed contact ratings you have in Shadowrun).
You COULD die during MGT character generation even without the Iron man optional rule. If you're unlucky and a Mishap (or aging, for that matter) reduces a Characteristic to zero, you die unless you pay a hefty medical fee (or could you put this into "medical debt")?
Other Mishap injuries could be definitely cured by medical care, which costs money, though most careers subsidize (or even eliminate in some cases) this cost. Medical costs are deducted from your Cash Benefits, and any leftovers are debts you have to pay in-game.
You could take anagathics during CharGen to avoid aging, and their costs are handled similarly to other chargen medical costs. Anagathics are far, far cheaper in MGT than in CT, which isn't something I like very much (unless you give them side-effects, that is); in a high-TL universe, I'd give them CT prices, but make aging slower even without them on high-TL worlds (due to high-tech preventive medical care). But I usually like pre-TL15 settings (such as 1248 or near-future ATUs), and anagathics are TL15 - rare relic-tech in 1248 or alien artifacts in near-future ATUs - not something I'd allow in chargen in pre-TL15 settings. Anyhow, to balance anagathics, there is an optional rule putting a 6-term-maximum limit on characters.
Retirement pay, by the way, works in MGT in a very similar manner to CT.
The MGT chargen process is designed to be a group effort (though there are optional rules to do it individually); there is a mechanic called "connection" which essentially connects different PCs' Events and grants each PC up to two additional skill points to spend as they desire (as long as they don't increase a skill above 3), and there is a group "skill package" allowing the group to split a few campaign-relevant skill-1's to make the group well-rounded in terms of skills.
There is also an optional point-buy rule; I haven't tried it yet, so I can't tell how balanced it is. I'll try it soon and post the results.
An example character is provided - Alexander Lacelles Jamison of the CT fame. The example is very detailed, and thus helpful. On a strange note, Jamison's picture on p.39 looks to me a bit like a Shadowrun dwarf...
While the character sheets and sample NPCs provided do not use UWPs, they are still mentioned and described by the rules.
Impression from the Character Generation System, part 4 - Aliens
MGT has some basic rules regarding aliens. Some possible alien traits are provided, such as Small (like the Droyne), Large (like the K'Kree), Aquatic, Uplifted, Flyer and so on. Most of these traits have game-rule relevance (for example, smaller creatures are weaker but have better dexterity, large creatures are stronger but have lower dexterity; really small creatures are harder to hit and really big ones are easier to hit); Uplifted has no game-rule relevance and is more of a descriptor (for Vargr, Apes and Dolphins). Aliens also tend to use a different stat instead of Social Standing - Vargr have Charisma, for example.
Under the basic MGT rules, alien use the same careers as humans do, but the referee is advised to create different event tables for them. Future products are mentioned to include detailed alien chargen.
The OTU's Major Races (Aslan, Droyne, Hiver, K'Kree, Vargr, Zhodani - but not Solomani and Vilani) are discussed in general terms and a few basic relevant rules.
Impression from the Tasks and Skills
MGT uses a task system not unlike the CT combat system - roll 2d6+DMs, 8+ is a success. The most common DMs are characteristic DMs, skill DMs and difficulty DMs (yes, difficulty is a DM to the roll). Characteristic DMs usually range from -1 to +1, unless the character has extreme characteristics (2 or less or 12 or more) - this is a good thing as the 2d6 curve is very sensitive to DMs. This also means that a professional (skill 2+) would usually benefit much more from his skill than from his characteristics, which is in accord with the basic Traveller assumptions. A sidebar in this chapter gives the probabilities of success with various total DMs.
It is noted in two places in this chapter that you don't have to make rolls unless either the task at hand is risky or when failure is interesting. In routine day-to-day operations a character with a skill usually succeeds.This rule-of-a-thumb means that you usually don't roll for landing in nice weather at a good starport with a working ship, but you'll have to roll a task when the weather is significantly bad or when landing under fire. In other words, use a task only when relevant to the drama. I like that approach.
You could use the same skill with different characteristic DMs at different occasions - for example, while shooting uses the appropriate Gun Combat specialization and the Dexterity DM, identifying the brand of a gun in a weapon bazaar would use the appropriate Gun Combat specialization and the Education DM. This is nice, intuitive and flexible.
Timing and Effect have been totally revised from the initial playtest concepts. Timing uses an additional (separate) 1d6, which is then multiplied by the time interval of the task at hand. You could also hasten a task (taking a negative DM) or take your time with it (which gives you a positive DM). Effect is no longer tied to a single die; instead, you take you task roll total (2d6+all DMs including difficulty) and subtract 8 from it. The result is your Effect. What you do with that number differs from task to task, but as a general rule an effect of 6 or more is a particularly great success and an effect of -6 or less is a particularly embarrassing failure.
A cool new concept in MGT is the idea of Task Chains. These are chains of inter-dependent tasks (usually taken by different PCs) in which the Effect of one task applies a DM on the next. For example, if character A is chatting with a guard in order to distract him so that character B could sneak by unnoticed, a particularly good success on character A's Deception roll would give a positive DM to character B's Stealth roll, and a particularly bad failure would give a negative DM.
There are 47 skills in total in MGT including four Science skills. This is about twice the amount of skills in CT-LBB1, but on the other hand there are also twice the number of careers (specializations not counted), some skills are not absolutely necessary in every game and are more a matter of flavor than anything else (Art for example or even Science skills if you're running, say, a Merc campaign), and some skills overlap (Deception, Persuasion, Admin, Advocate and even Diplomat or Streetwise could be used to solve similar problems from different angles). Most skills are ones from CT-LBBs 1-7, with some additions (such as Science, Art and Athletics) and some changes (Vehicle is now split into Drive, Flyer and Seafarer; Recon is mostly observation and Stealth is its own skill; Electronic is a specialization of Engineering rather than a separate skill, Gravities are subsumed in Engineering (M-Drive) and a few more changes).
Cascade skills are nominally gone. Instead, some skills (such as Engineering or Gun Combat) have Specializations. Each specialization is a skill on it's own, BUT having ranks (or even even Skill-0) in one specialization gives you Skill-0 in the other specialization of the same skill - for example, if you have Gun Combat (Slug Pistol)-1 you get Skill-0 in Gun Combat (Slug Rifle), Gun Combat (Energy Pistol) and Gun Combat (Energy Rifle). You could, of course, develop the other specializations as well (for example, get Skill-1 or more in both Slug Pistol and Slug Rifle).
There are now separate Engineering specializations for M-Drives, J-Drives, P-Plants, Electronics and Life Support. This means that many engineers would have Skill-0 in some of these fields.
A strange this - p.49 lists the difficulty of plotting a jump as Average while p.53 lists it as Easy. Which is correct?
Jack of Trades (JoT) now decreases the Unskilled penalty, so JoT-3 (the maximum) effectively means that you have Skill-0 in ALL skills. This feels a little overpowered, but on the other hand JoT is not a very common skill, Skill-3's are rare in any case, and you can't increase or even gain this skill after chargen.
MGT has a Trade (which means profession in this context) skill, covering various manufacturing and services professions such as hydroponics or polymer-productions. There is a simple mechanic for earning money from your Trade using a monthly task roll's Effect, but no Difficulty is given, and, furthermore, the amount of credits given seems VERY low in comparison with the cost of living table on p.87.
There is a very simple system for character advancement - you could increase your skills or even gain new skills simply by training, No costs are given, and it is not clear whether or not you could engage in other activities while training. The training time is measured in weeks, but could easily amount to months, and feels similar to the CT-LBB4 Instruction times. Also, the more skills in total you already have in MGT, the longer it takes you to learn new ones.
Impression from the Combat System
The MGT combat system is merely 9 pages long, including tables (and thankfully not too many of them) and even vehicle combat (and repair) rules. This is a great thing for an RPG combat system as long as the system works - as it means that the system is simple, and, hopefully, efficient. And, expect for two major pitfalls (problematic armor rules and unclear vehicle movement rules), it actually is quite a good and efficient system. And it covers quite a lot of subjects as well, all without being overly complicated.
Unlike the playtest rules, initiative doesn't use Timing dice, but instead a roll of 2D6+the Dexterity DM at the beginning of the combat encounter. This base initiative stays for the remainder of this encounter (and whoever has the higher initiative acts first), BUT several factors may change initiative temporarily (for one combat round at a time), such as using heavy melee weapons or firearms with serious recoil (especially in full auto), or trying to hasten one's action at the price of a negative DM to all actions.
Each round you could perform one minor action (such as movement, driving a vehicle or aiming), one significant action (such as firing), and any number of free actions (such as speaking a word or flipping a switch within your reach). Alternatively, you could forgo all your actions to perform an extended action - any action taking more than one combat round (such as first aid). You could also react to attacks (by parrying or dodging) any number of times you want, but each such reaction gives penalties to task rolls until the end of the current round.
The attack roll is a task roll, and thus very similar to CT to-hit rolls: skill, plus the appropriate characteristic DM and any relevant other DMs. 8+ hits. An interesting thing is that you could now use DEX in lieu of STR in order to provide the DM to hit in melee. At first glance it looks as if the role of Strength in combat is diminished, but it isn't - STR now helps dealing with heavy melee weapons or with firearm recoil; a weak but agile character could aim a heavy melee weapon well, but would take longer than a stronger character to recover and get the weapon ready again (in game terms, heft or recoil penalizes Initiative for the next round).
There are two types of automatic fire: bursts and auto-fire. Bursts simply increases damage by the weapon's autofire rating while wasting ammo than a single shot and having a larger recoil penalty. Auto-fire means that for the attack roll you roll a number of dice equal to the weapon's auto-fire rating and assign two of them to each target (BEFORE rolling, I hope!) as long as the targets are close to each another - so you get multiple attacks; but recoil is very heavy in that mode and it spends a lot of ammo.
Unlike CT, thrown weapons now use attack rolls like any other ranged weapon, but use the Athletics (Coordination) skill instead of Gun Combat.
You could now use Tactics or Leadership to increase the initiative of others, but while tactics allows you to increase the initiative of all characters under your command, Leadership only increases the Initiative of one character at a time.
Cover works by giving a negative DM to hit, and if you're prone behind cover the DMs for both cover and being prone stack - up to DM -6 when being prone behind full cover!
MGT uses range-bands by default, though there are rules for using square-grids as well. Range gives a DM to hit as in CT, but is per category (e.g. Pistol, Rifle, Shotgun, Assault Weapon and so on) rather than by individual weapon.
At first glance, MGT damage looks like CT, but a closer look reveals that it is quite different. Damage is deducted from the physical characteristics, alright, and you die when all three characteristics reach zero, but here the differences start. For starters, damage is taken first from Endurance and only then from a target's choice of Dexterity or Strength (though there is an optional rule to choose any physical characteristic to be the first instead of END). Also, you don't fall unconscious when your END reaches zero, only when BOTH your END and another physical characteristic reaches zero (though there is an optional rule with which you fall unconscious when your first physical characteristic reaches zero). And, weapon damage is - apparently - applied as a whole to one characteristics, and if it reaches zero any left-over damage goes to the next one. This makes combat quite deadly, as you can't split the damage dice between different characteristics. So gun-shots HURT!
Armor now absorbs damage points rather than giving a DM to hit or absorbing damage dice. The thing is that most armor types presented on the p.87 table are quite weak in comparison to weapons, especially with Effect added to their damage.
Look at this that way: most pistols do 3D6-3 damage. On average, a D6 result is 3.5; 3D6 on average is 10-11 (let's say 11), and thus 3D6-3 is around 8 points of damage on average before applying Effect. Cloth armor, which is the equivalent of an RL Kevlar vest, stops only 3 points of damage - hardly stopping a pistol bullet even with Effect 0 and an average roll. A dagger does 1D6+2, which is on average 5-6 points of damage even with Effect 0 - and Jack Armor, which is supposed to be helpful against melee attacks, has only Armor 1, which is hardly effective against it.
The vehicle rules are very simple and seem to be written with "what happens when I fire my PGMP-12 on that G-Carrier" or a car-chase in city streets in mind rather than tank- or aircraft-squadron engagements. Movement rules are very vague; the vehicle descriptions have speeds in KPH, but there are no rules for movement or acceleration/deceleration within a frame of a combat round. However, there ARE quite cool rules for chases, up to and including "weaving" your vehicle between obstacles in hope of getting the pursuer to crash into them. There are also rules for crashing, ramming, evasive maneuvers and so on.
The vehicle damage system is good, and there is a table for converting personnel damage (i.e. gun damage) into vehicle damage. Hits themselves are resolved on a damage table, a bit similar to CT-LBB2 ship damage tables but with an "internal damage" sub-table instead of a "critical" sub-table. There is also a robot/drone damage table - robots/drones behave like characters in combat but take hits like vehicles. All vehicles/robots/drones have two damage-related attributes: Hull and Structure. When hull is reduced to zero, any further hit is rolled on the interior damage table, where all the juicier bits are (e.g. power plant, passengers and so on, as well as Structure hits); until then you roll only on the exterior table which has weapons, drives, Hull hits and so on. When Structure reaches zero, the vehicle is destroyed; if a single attack applied to Structure causes more hits than there are Structure points, the vehicle explodes!
The repair rules are very short but extremely cool, essentially measuring damage in "hits" and allowing you to cannibalize other vehicles for spare parts - effectively causing damage hits to their systems! There are also rules for replacing completely destroyed systems.
