New Paizo SF RPG: Competitor with Traveller?

[paltrysum]

We played Star Frontiers. Had some fun with it but ultimately boomeranged back to Traveller.

 

[Reynard]

Now I suddenly though about a Traveller adventure that would be based on a very old D&D adventure that was both fantasy and science fiction, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks! Travellers land on a low tech level world. Rumors talk about a cave in the wilderness with terrible monsters and golems guarding its strange corridors killing anyone who enters.

 

[AndrewW]

I liked Star Frontiers.

Got that one myself, though never really got a chance to play it.

 

[Linwood]

Now I suddenly though about a Traveller adventure that would be based on a very old D&D adventure that was both fantasy and science fiction, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks! Travellers land on a low tech level world. Rumors talk about a cave in the wilderness with terrible monsters and golems guarding its strange corridors killing anyone who enters.

<spoilers> Didn’t that one feature an alien spacecraft buried under the mountain? <end spoiler>

 

[Reynard]

Maybe….

Now I have to dig it out and convert to Traveller.

 

[AndrewW]

<spoilers> Didn’t that one feature an alien spacecraft buried under the mountain? <end spoiler>

Well, part of one:

THE SPACESHIP
Sometime else, a large exploration-colonization expedition of human origin was overtaken in the course of its journey by a deadly plague. In a vain effort to halt the spread of the virus, the modular sections of the vessel were sealed and then separated, each left to its own fate. The section concerned here was drawn through a black hole and spewed into the universe where the World of Greyhawk fantasy setting exists. Chance brought it to that very planet, and its computersand robotics brought it to an intact landing.

 

[NOLATrav]

We played Star Frontiers. Had some fun with it but ultimately boomeranged back to Traveller.

Yeah same here.

 

[steve98052]

I didn't notice this two and a half year old thread back then, so I squandered much of the day reading it. It looks like this answers the title question pretty well:

So... after a year and a half, has Starfinder completely destroyed Traveller as competition?

Bought the books. Thought with Pathfinder so popular at the local game store Starfinder would have an audience. It very infrequently goes up on the schedule and *chirp chirp*.
. . .

Hooray for Traveller!

- - -
(I'll split subtopics with these triple hyphens.)
- - -

So, on to things that caught my attention:

Thank you for the recommendation. I do have Interstellar Wars, but unfortunately the GURPS Traveller ships are incompatible with the ships of other Traveller versions, and GURPS has lost the Traveller license anyway, so this design system is more or less a dead end.

I don't see them as incompatible, except that their designs require a bit of conversion to use with Mongoose. I mix and match anyway, using GURPS Traveller for ship design, Mongoose for character back-story, and a lightweight system (PDQ# for short games, Savage Worlds for longer games), and I try to make combat play out for results rather than a wargame.

. . .
As for a robot design system, the little information in GURPS Basic is really not my idea of a true design system, especially when compared to GURPS 3rd Robots (or even the Robot supplement of Classic Traveller).
. . .

If a character is a robot, it's a character. If it wants to buy an emotion chip, handwave the cost. If it wants to buy something like a combat upgrade, price it out like a comparable gadget.

If a robot is a character's personal property, Vehicles can design it if you want crunchy, or you can wing it.

GURPS covers pretty much everything that one needs for Traveller, but with a vision that's too crunchy for most Traveller people, such as considering both mass and volume of ships.
- - -

Do people actually play RPGs in shops? Odd, never heard of that. Not something I've ever come across at all.

Here in Seattle, pretty much every game store that sells role-playing games hosts games. The same was true in Lincoln. But I don't remember seeing it in Saint Paul or Minneapolis, though I didn't know a lot of game stores there.

Before Internet groups as a way to find players, the usual way to find people for a game group was to attend in-store games, and when one got acquainted with enough people to take a group to someone's home (or office conference room), the group would go there.

- - -

. . .
I prefer Traveller of course - but what is key to me is internal consistency. I like the approach of "establish handwavium, then apply logical consequence" - which is why I slightly prefer traveller .

You two are talking about the opposite problem of what I am discussing. Over the course of technological and scientific progress, Traveller’s notions about realism have been made obsolete, and are, therefore, just as much fantasy as “Star Wars”; I’m not here complaining that Traveller doesn’t match my notions of fantasy... I’m complaining that it doesn’t match the cold hard facts of scientific and technological progress.
. . .

This assertion puzzles me.

OK, I get it that computers don't have to be big. My house rule? Computers are free with whatever systems they control, unless you're on a mid-technology world where a computer should be as big as a refrigerator, or a house. That's a simple change. The few extra dtons don't break the ship design rules.

Really dim red dwarfs are much more abundant than was known in the 1970s? Hot Jupiters are common? No big deal. Those are smaller divergences from the real galaxy than the flat map, and that's a generally accepted simplification for the sake of play. House rule around it if it's a problem.
- - -

Give an example of what exactly that Traveller's rules get in the way with what you're trying to do.

- My ship uses chemical rockets to get around and reaction mass. Tell me how to calculate travel times and reaction mass loss using Mongoose Traveller.

This is closely approximated in GURPS Traveller, loosely approximated in Mongoose, and I think covered in Fire, Fusion, and Steel.

- I want to make a setting where ships travel using HyperDrive through another dimension that has "terrain" in that is defined by stars and planets and other masses. Show me the hyperdrive tables, advice for the effects of such a drive on a setting, and how to calculate the mass of the hyperdrive engines for a ship.

This seems to be covered in Mongoose, the SRD rules, and in GURPS Space or Vehicles.

- Rules for uploaded intelligences, and how they can download into vehicles, robots or biological bodies.

This is way outside the scope of Traveller or anythingI'd care to play (unless invited by someone who I knew was a great game-master) that I wouldn't know where to look. There's probably a GURPS supplement that would cover it though, and although it wouldn't be GURPS Traveller, it would be compatible.

(maybe these are in expansions like High Guard, I don't know. But they're not in the corebook).

I wouldn't expect such rules in a core book. A game design picks a domain for the core books, and the rest goes into supplements.
- - -

The facts: GURPS Space 4th has neither a vehicle design system nor a robot design system, two systems I would expect a "universal" science fiction game to have. For both purposes one has to use the relevant supplements of GURPS 3rd, and the technology concepts of these two older supplements are almost as outdated as those of previous Traveller editions.

Vehicles other than spacecraft are covered in Vehicles, and yes, the update is taking its time through the editorial process, but third and fourth are largely compatible. Robots that are characters are in the basic rules. Robots that are personal property are vehicles.
- - -

To cut the local convo a bit, and insert something on the general thread:

I don't think Paizo's new SF RPG will be a direct competitor for Traveller. Of course, my opinion is based on pure assumption without any input from Paizo, thus, when new info arises what I am typing here might dissolve into irrelevance.
. . .

It looks like your forecast was on target.

The following is way more than I usually like to quote, but I think it's a really nice observation. Rules don't need to be complicated to be fun.

Several years ago, by chance, I was browsing this - new to me at the time - site Drivethrurpg. I can't remember the exact details, perhaps I read it in a forum, or someone hinted me in skype, but I searched for Traveller, got interested and bought the Starter booklet (it had a few careers, some equipment, some skills and ground combat rules). We tried a few sessions, and we got hooked.

It was the first time I realized that rules actually can get in the way of the fun - the constant rule clarification, searching in the books, someone correcting another one of a particular rule interpretation - we were so used to that from DnD, that we didn't know any better. In Traveller, this was reduced to a minimum. If someone wanted to perform an action that the rules did not explicitly state, the way was simple, efficient and balanced (a simple skill check). The game also introduced this abstract, yet realistic deadliness of the encounters - bad thinking and bad dices can result in a death of a character. The game - so simple, yet not lacking. No levels, no feats, no magic items but no one seemed to miss those. For us, it was an invitation for the imagination to wake up after we've put it in the specific constraints of the rules-heavy games for too long.

What I want to say with this story is that Traveller has its charms and quirks, and it makes it a very different game from many others. If someone prefers Starfinder, or any other game, before Traveller, then it was never his game to begin with.

- - -

I have spent the entire afternoon researching this topic,

Now that is a true Traveller player

Our editor drops in with the ideal observation for me to conclude this really long message.

 

[AndrewW]

Here in Seattle, pretty much every game store that sells role-playing games hosts games. The same was true in Lincoln. But I don't remember seeing it in Saint Paul or Minneapolis, though I didn't know a lot of game stores there.

Having actually been to two game stores in the Saint Paul/Minneapolis area, can say one did and had lots of tables, the other one just had a small space in a mall so there wouldn't have been room to do so.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Just wondering, does Spelljammer compete with Traveller? Starfinder is as much science fiction as is Spelljammer, they are both fantasy settings just on different levels.

 

[Reynard]

Spelljammer can be considered much further fantasy than Starfinder. Starfinder has elements of science while spelljammer is magic sailing ships in the ether between fantasy worlds. I sometimes wonder if the Spelljammer reality was overwritten by the gods replaced by the Starfinder reality.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Spelljammer can be considered much further fantasy than Starfinder. Starfinder has elements of science while spelljammer is magic sailing ships in the ether between fantasy worlds. I sometimes wonder if the Spelljammer reality was overwritten by the gods replaced by the Starfinder reality.

Stars have a connection to the elemental plane of fire, and are inhabited by denizens of the plane of fire. You have magical blasters, and soul tech, as well as a planet of zombies and undead A lot of it is magic dressed up as science, Spelljammer at least is straight fantasy which happens to take place in space. There is a lot of tech which depends on magic in Starfinder, so the whole thingt bends more towards fantasy than any science fiction. I like to keep the science and magic seperate, when they intersect, the science should stand on its own and not depend on magic. Once you start having technomancers and magic spells that create technological devices, it spoils the flavor. I think science and magic mix like oil and water, if it blends together the setting becomes pure fantasy dressed up as science fiction. The blaster your character is firing is actually a magic wand with a trigger, you need a wizard to recharge it.

 

[Jame Rowe]

Just wondering, does Spelljammer compete with Traveller? Starfinder is as much science fiction as is Spelljammer, they are both fantasy settings just on different levels.

One valuable point to remember about Spelljammer competing with Traveller, right now in the modern era:

Spelljammer is no longer being published. Traveller is.