High Guard Playtest - Winding Up

[MongooseMatt]

Well, it has been a long road - and one I have enjoyed a great deal! I have really had fun going therough all your comments, and considering all sorts of areas of these rules that I might otherwise not have given as much attention.

Thank you, one and all!

We are making the 'final' updates to High Guard right now - we are still waiting for artwork to come in for the various ships (as well as stats for various ships!) but the rules are being considered more or less complete. However, if you notice something major down the road, shout out and we'll see if there is time to make adjustments!

Oh, and as soon as I get some time to come up for air, High Guard (and Central Supply) will be joining the pre-order list on the web site!

 

[wbnc]

It's been interesting. I can honestly say I've picked up a lot of ideas from the process.And, learned a lot about how the various rules mesh with one another.

 

[phavoc]

Will there be another release of HG with the cleaned up rules, or will that not happen and the next release will be the final version.

 

[MongooseMatt]

In all likelihood, the next time you see High Guard, it will be the final PDF!

 

[arcador]

It all sounds good. I am eager to see the final pdf (hopefully with tons of awesome artwork)

(the little worrier in me still hopes you've managed to clear all the little things scattered across this forum section)

If your time permits, can we get a brief of any changes to the rules compared to the beta version we have, if there are any?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

It would be great with a final beta release, even if only for a few days. The Fighter Squadron and Fleet system are new and have quite a few changes?

Double missile salvoes and PD could perhaps use another test drive.

 

[Tikon2000]

I didn't get to see any of the beta playtests, etc. I have one question. I noticed in Gypsy Knight Games supplement for it's fighters and landers, that every ship basically had the same stats. Tonnage, weapons, thrust, etc. Really not much difference. Even though one said it was a space superiority fighter, and another was for air superiority. But there were no stats for that. Just said so in the flavor text. T20 had those rules for it's vehicles. Spaceships as well as fighters. More than just cone and sphere shapes as in the core book of Mongoose Traveller. Things like partial streamlineing, full streamlining, airframe, supersonic airframe, to hypersonic airframe. Is any of that in the upcoming High Guard or Vehicle book?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Yes, most of it, but not at all detailed. The spacecraft design system is much more detailed than the vehicle system.

The spacecraft system is more like original High Guard with a single system for all sizes. It's more detailed with streamlining and aerofins.

The vehicle system is much simpler, where a single advantage makes the craft faster, that advantage includes airframe, engines, etc. E.g.: Grav vehicles can be of any size, but can basically only be "Fast" or "Very Fast".

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Did you ever get around to those half-dTon tiles so that it would be easier for people to make deck plans?

 

[nats]

I do hope HG will feature some of the more imaginative characterful designs from the various Mongoose supplements, including some good deck plans + nice pics of them landed at port etc rather than just being in space - not to mention a detailed layout for a standard spaceport ?

And some nice stats of the larger ships for fighting large battles. Along with a standardised template for recording ship stats for round the tables battle use.

Theres lots of good stuff that should be part of the basic rules for starship design and use, if there is going to be one 'all encompassing' Starships book now (which is a great idea for Mongooses). Personally I would rather it was called 'Starships' rather than 'High Guard' though - going back to the original rules books.

I also hope there is going to be a bit on using miniatures for battles still.

And yes definitely with the new combat rules 1m squares would be more useful for ships plans than 1.5m squares. You could always do plans with both sizes shown together. I would definitely like to see a blank starship grid page in there somewhere as well for photocopying to design my own ships on it - with 1m squares for combat and 1.5m squares for designing shown together.

 

[AndrewW]

A number of ships from Supplement 9 Fighting Ships and a little from Supplement 7 Traders and Gunboats, along with a few ships from some of the Classic Traveller adventures are being included in the new High Guard. Note, based on the original versions not the versions say done for Supplement 3: Fighting Ships or Supplement 2: Traders and Gunboats (ie: not the existing Mongoose versions).

The original did have a High Guard as well as Starships, so still fits with that.

 

[nats]

The original did have a High Guard as well as Starships, so still fits with that.

Yes but High Guard relates more to large ship combat which is not really relevant to most Traveller campaigns, Starships is a more generalised title that could refer to all of them. High Guard made sense in past booklets it doesnt make so much sense in a new collected book about all manner of ships. The point surely is that most Traveller campaigns are about small ship travel and combat, it is this aspect that appeals to most players so I would call it something to do with that.

 

[Nerhesi]

I would say HG has a ton to offer to regular campaigns. In fact more than 80% in my opinion is great for non-capital/"normal" traveller campaigns.

Ship building in general, with only a minute set of options being "Capital ship only" (large bays, spinals). The rest is just as useful to a 300-ton small SDB and to a 700-ton player customized adventure ship as they are to a 50,000 ton cruiser.

Ship building
All ship options/technology except spinals and maybe large bays... maybe
Starbases
Small squadrons
Hybrid combat rules
"Fleet combat" - yes even that (good for multiple combatants)

Even the "capital combat" stuff is good for background simulation.

 

[nats]

I would say HG has a ton to offer to regular campaigns... [snip]

I was referring to the name alone not the content. Anyway its not important just an observation thats all. I dont really care what its called tbh but then I am not a new gamer to Traveller so I can see the heritage of the name, some may not.

So is High Guard just design rules? Or does it feature combat rules as well? Because I really hope the rules systems are NOT split up for small and large ship combat. Sick or having to reconcile several lots of rules systems all over the books.

My perfect situation would be that the Core Rule Book has ALL the major rules in it, that perhaps an 'advanced book' is released for 'other rules' like a Dungeon Masters Book that would cover all advanced stuff. And that ALL the other books either only feature detailed design systems or new ship layouts/sample characters/creature lists/adventures/star sectors etc.

If you are doing a new version of Traveller its a great opportunity to tidy up all the mess of different rules that were spread all over the place in the early Mongoose books. I dont want to be looking in two different books for ship combat rules is what I am saying.

 

[AndrewW]

So is High Guard just design rules? Or does it feature combat rules as well? Because I really hope the rules systems are NOT split up for small and large ship combat. Sick or having to reconcile several lots of rules systems all over the books.

The ship design rules have been consolidated into High Guard and are no longer split between the Core Rulebook and High Guard, there is:

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION -
SHIP DESIGN -
WEAPONS AND SCREENS -
SPACECRAFT OPTIONS -
PRIMITIVE AND ADVANCED SPACECRAFT -
SPACE STATIONS -
THE SHIP’S COMPUTER -
HIGH TECHNOLOGY -
CREATING DECK PLANS -
CAPITAL SHIP BATTLES -
FIGHTERS -
COMMON SPACECRAFT -
SMALL CRAFT -
SPACECRAFT -
CAPITAL SHIPS -
SPACE STATIONS

 

[Nerhesi]

As for rules vs design in HG,

It is mostly design with two rule models that can be used to speed up capital combat.

 

[nats]

Oh so combat rules are split between core book and HG. But hey ¬ space station design rules - great! And separate section on the ships computer. I hope anti boarding procedures are in there.

 

[Nerhesi]

Oh so combat rules are split between core book and HG. But hey ¬ space station design rules - great! And separate section on the ships computer. I hope anti boarding procedures are in there.

Combat rules are not split between the two books, any more than "all pages published by mongoose are split between books".

Combat rules are in core rule book.
Design rules are in HG.

There are alternate/optional combat rules in HG (just as pretty much most supplements in all rpgs may introduce other rules)- that you are free to use, to make capital/large scale combat FASTER, but you dont have to use them whatsoever and the regular rules in the rule book are fine. If you want to roll for each and every single turret on a 500,000 ton battle-ship. Go ahead!

But there is no sense in putting faster/optional/alternate rules in the main core rulebook if that only has 12 basic ships in there.

 

[simonh]

I am absolutely fine with supplements containing additional rules. While I agree in theory it would be better to have all the rules for everything in one book, in practice that would lead to far too many other compromises that aren't worth making.

• The single rule book would be far too big.
  It would be too expensive.
  People not interested in all the 'advanced' rules for everything would have to pay for them anyway (page count costs money).
  If you kept the page count under control, you'd have to cut other material.
  All the additional rules development would delay the release of the core book. A lot.

So High Guard containing the rules for capital ship combat is fine, IMHO.

Frankly, the design of the core rulebook in MT v1 was fine too, with core rules for ship design in the core book. I certainly wouldn't say it was a mistake. After all the Traveller market was very different back then to how it is now. Every decision like this involves compromises. The important thing is that those compromises are carefully judged, and the resulting design is well executed.

Simon Hibbs

 

[nats]

I have always felt subseqent versions of Traveller after the LBB set made Traveller far too rules heavy. Look at D&D - its amazing what you can do with 4-5 pages of rules. Ancillary rules are just not necessary. Everything else after the Core Rule Book should be just flavouring. Individual scenarios can always specify the odd rule to do with that game or the Ref can always make up certain rules to cover specific situations like animal tracking or travel over sea or dealing with hot weather. These things don't need formal rules created for them if the game is well designed.

This is why I got rid of loads of my Mongoose V1 books - just couldnt stand the proliferation of extra rules in practically every book to come out even the Supply Catalogue had rules on top of rules - many of which conflicted with the core rules or created confusion. I ended up with some character books and the Core Rule book and that was about it and I was very happy with that.

No need for loads of rules.

BUT two new rules Traveller absolutely does need are traits relating to charisma and perception! These two traits alone cover so much role playing that its amazing really that Traveller has never had these in the basic rules anywhere. I mean how on earth do you role play perception or charisma at the moment using the basic rules - social standing and education just do not cut it. I truly hope these essential things are in the new rules otherwise I will be house-ruling them already.